[Bruce Buffer Voice]
And now; for the Heavyweight Carrara Platform Of Choice! In this corner, the Wisconsin Wildebeast…evilproducer! And in this corner, the Texan Tornado…Garstoooooor!!!![/Bruce Buffer Voice]

Wait a second…I just implied that I was Texan…I suddenly feel like I need to compensate by commenting on how big everything is here…

Signature

- Garstor
Australian-Canadian currently trapped in Texas (maintaining sanity with doses of Carrara, LightWave and PhotoShop)

[Bruce Buffer Voice]
And now; for the Heavyweight Carrara Platform Of Choice! In this corner, the Wisconsin Wildebeast…evilproducer! And in this corner, the Texan Tornado…Garstoooooor!!!![/Bruce Buffer Voice]

Wait a second…I just implied that I was Texan…I suddenly feel like I need to compensate by commenting on how big everything is here…

It’s a good thing Canadians only fight aboot hockey, eh? Bazinga! You wouldn’t hit a smiley with glasses would ya’? Huh? Would ya’?

[Bruce Buffer Voice]
And now; for the Heavyweight Carrara Platform Of Choice! In this corner, the Wisconsin Wildebeast…evilproducer! And in this corner, the Texan Tornado…Garstoooooor!!!![/Bruce Buffer Voice]

Wait a second…I just implied that I was Texan…I suddenly feel like I need to compensate by commenting on how big everything is here…

[Bruce Buffer Voice]
And now; for the Heavyweight Carrara Platform Of Choice! In this corner, the Wisconsin Wildebeast…evilproducer! And in this corner, the Texan Tornado…Garstoooooor!!!![/Bruce Buffer Voice]

Wait a second…I just implied that I was Texan…I suddenly feel like I need to compensate by commenting on how big everything is here…

Except, of course, for the bodies of fresh water - or so I’m told

{rimshot}

Signature

- Garstor
Australian-Canadian currently trapped in Texas (maintaining sanity with doses of Carrara, LightWave and PhotoShop)

[Bruce Buffer Voice]
And now; for the Heavyweight Carrara Platform Of Choice! In this corner, the Wisconsin Wildebeast…evilproducer! And in this corner, the Texan Tornado…Garstoooooor!!!![/Bruce Buffer Voice]

Wait a second…I just implied that I was Texan…I suddenly feel like I need to compensate by commenting on how big everything is here…

It’s a good thing Canadians only fight aboot hockey, eh? Bazinga! You wouldn’t hit a smiley with glasses would ya’? Huh? Would ya’?

While I was at it… I got Rosie a new vehicle to fly around on: Flydragon, by Orestes Graphics! I’ve been wanting this since it first hit the store. Now It’s all Rosie’s to fly around on as she pleases. Almost can’t wait to show off some renders with her flying this awesome new creature… but, alas… duty calls, and I must.

Progress report ... Lights! I found zee light switch. [at least for some of them, sunshine didn’t do a thing but I do recall reading somewhere that the size had to be huge to get a soft shadow from it].

And with an item selected, I clicked on zee Paint Brush and received a rather intimidating notice ... something about editing masters or creating new ones which would then be applied to all future instances?!!!

Progress report ... Lights! I found zee light switch. [at least for some of them, sunshine didn’t do a thing but I do recall reading somewhere that the size had to be huge to get a soft shadow from it].

And with an item selected, I clicked on zee Paint Brush and received a rather intimidating notice ... something about editing masters or creating new ones which would then be applied to all future instances?!!!

My new little mascot there, well, it doesn’t look like the one on the box [yet].
Anyway, here’s a quick render ... and it has “shadows”.

Cheers,
C.

Think of the sunlight and distant light as nearly the same thing. The icon looks like a 3D arrow pointing in the direction the light is coming from. If your garage has a ceiling, the light can’t get through, which is why it didn’t appear to be working. If you had pulled your camera back out of the garage, then you have seen the effect of the sunlight on the exterior of the set.

Soft shadows don’t happen on any light unless you enable them in the light’s effects tab. The radius of the light is at a default of .08ft in a medium scaled scene. For a sunlight, you’d probably want to manually set it in the hundreds of feet. I usually start with a 100’ and do a test render to see if I need to go up or down with it. The reason they are off by default is that depending on the scene, it can take much longer to render. Shadow buffers are software short cut. They mimic soft shadows, but they have their limitations, such as not respecting alphas or transparencies.

To modify a complex shader you would use the Texture room. The paint brush icon on the top right of your screen. You can also double click on a shader to edit it. Unless you’ve changed your preferences, if the shader is used by more than one instance, Carrara will ask if you wish to edit the Master, which will change the shader on everything that uses it, or if you want to create a new master, which when chosen, will only change it for the item you’re editing it on. The shading system is very powerful and can have a learning curve, but once you see how some things work, you’ll find all sorts of creative opportunities open up.

This example uses no image maps (pictures or illustrations that are mapped to the surface of the object) to generate the textures on the dam. The water does use a picture I painted in Photoshop for the foam streaks in the falls. The foam at the bottom of the dam is also built with without image maps. The same for the cattails and rushes.

Forgot to mention that the lights can be additive in their brightness, If you have three bulb lights set to 100 percent brightness, it’s going to look like a light set at 300 percent. It’s not so bad with spot lights because they can be pointed in different directions.

Try this: Figure out where you want your light sources and how many. Set one up at a time by adjusting it’s brightness, color, range and falloff (which determines how softly and how how quickly the light diminishes as the outer range of the light is reached). Most of the lights default to 400’ in the medium scene. If your garage is only 30’ then 400’ is a bit of overkill. When you have the basic lights set up, then turn them all visible to see how they interact with each other. Adjust as needed.

When doing multiple test renders, I usually try and keep the render settings low enough for fast renders, but good enough to get an idea of my adjustments. On the rare occasions I use GI, I leave that off until I absolutely need to see how it looks before I commit to a final render.